Random Happenstance

While on vacation last week, I read through the tub of old comics I keep at my parents' house, as I probably do every time I'm on vacation. (There's also a bin of my old Fisher-Price toys, that the boys both loved: the airport and plane, main street, the Sesame Street characters...) And the last couple of times I've done that, I end up taking an issue or three home to blog about; but I'm worried about depleting my stock there. So this time, I tried taking a few pictures with the digital camera, instead of bringing them home to scan. Let's see how that works...

Meh...OK, not great. During Blacklash/Whiplash week before I left, I mentioned that Blacklash (or Whiplash, whatever) didn't make a lot of appearances outside of Iron Man. Calvin Pitt, from over at Reporting on Marvels and Legends, reminded me of his Amazing Spider-Man showing, which I had forgotten but the cover sounded familiar, no doubt because it was in the tub o'comics! In this issue from the Todd McFarlane days, Blackie gives another surprisingly competent go of things: the Scorpion gets an upgraded tail from Justin Hammer, in exchange for future services. Scorpy promptly backs out of the deal, and Hammer sends the Rhino and Blacklash over to do the job, and get his property back.

Blacklash keeps Spidey busy...somehow...while the Rhino pulls the Scorpion's new tail off his ass. Ow. I think Spidey was just trying to keep Blacklash away from civilians or something, but I don't know why he had to lure him rather than simply webbing him up. Blackie has to pole vault after him, for pete's sake. Regardless, he and Rhino succeed in at least part of their mission.

What else did we find? Well, check after the break!
I mentioned I wanted to find this one a while back as well:
Captain America #312 was the first appearance of Flag-Smasher, a pretty good villain for Cap: he was an anti-nationalist, his father killed in a protest that cemented his belief that the planet should be united as one and not divided into petty nations with petty rivalries. Not an ignoble goal, but I'm pretty sure it's not one you're going to achieve by dressing up and waving around a flamethrower. That and it's a tough one to put in a soundbite: stating his goal, Smasher is shouted down by the crowd and called a "commie," so he then tries to explain he's against communism too...

In his next appearance, Flag-Smasher would be backed by his own terrorist group ULTIMATUM, the Ultimate Liberated Totally Integrated Mobile Army To Unite Mankind. Good lord, I would dearly love to know how writer Mark Gruenwald came up with that acronym. Some other time for that. But, in the letters' page for #312, there was the "Mighty Marvel Correction Kit," for a printing error in #309:


I mentioned those Correction Kits before, and I miss that kind of thing. Not the mistakes so much, but the fun little shrugs and fixes of same.

Thursday, another comic from the reserves, that I was breaking my legs looking for here...